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Showing papers on "Supreme Being published in 1975"


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 1975-Africa
TL;DR: The authors argued that the Intellectualist theory did not account adequately for variation in the concept and cult of the supreme being in settings uninfluenced by Islam and Christianity and suggested that, although the evidence was probably insufficient for a decisive verdict, the Theory appeared to give a rather good account of religious dynamics in such settings.
Abstract: In the first part of this paper I began by dealing with those of Fisher's objections to the Intellectualist Theory which seemed to me to require short, sharp, and destructive answers. I then went on to consider an objection which seemed to require a longer and more constructive answer. This was the objection that the Theory did not account adequately for variation in the concept and cult of the supreme being in settings uninfluenced by Islam and Christianity. I suggested that, although the evidence was probably insufficient for a decisive verdict, the Theory appeared to give a rather good account of religious dynamics in such settings. A demonstration of its plausibility in this context was, as I pointed out, an important preliminary to my main argument. For it was crucial to the credibility of the thesis that Islam and Christianity were more than anything else catalysts for changes that were ‘in the air’ anyway.

150 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a short summary of the religious context in which the concept of the Supreme Being (Mod1nlo ) has to be seen has been given in the context of the Sotho/Tswana cluster which inhabit a large semicircular area stretching from the Northern, Central and Western Transvaal, Botwana, the Northern Cape, the Orange Free State to Lesotho.
Abstract: The emerging reappraisal of their religious heritage by African Christians shows that we have entered a new phase in the interaction between African traditional religions and the Christian faith. The inevitable uncertainty created by this search for truth seems to call for a careful definition of concepts. The \"Supreme Being\" is one of the most crucial in this regard. This paper is an attempt to sort things out for the realm of a specific cultural context, viz. that of the Sotho/Tswana cluster which inhabit a large semicircular area stretching from the Northern, Central and Western Transvaal, Botwana, the Northern Cape, the Orange Free State to Lesotho. These peoples are related to each other to such a degree that a certain amount of generalization seems to be justified within the limits of such a paper. We start with a short summary of the religious context in which the concept of the Supreme Being (Mod1nlo ) has to be seen. Unfortunately there is no room here for substantiation of the hypotheses put forward. This we limit to the discussion of the Supreme Being itself in the central part. The last section, on the impact of the Christian proclamation on the concept of Modinto, again has had to be very condensed and generalized. African experience of reality is indivisible. Everything is integrated into a comprehensive whole and as such dependent on everything else. If we are to discover the existential significance of the Supreme Being in the Sotho religion we have to see it in the context of this whole. For the sake of comprehension we will discuss a few of its relevant dimensions.

9 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Aulard and Mathiez as mentioned in this paper argued that the first two cults were fabricated to respond to the patriotic passions of a people at war and that they were only elementary forms of the religious life which Frenchmen adopted out of nostalgia for the old.
Abstract: The religious question during the French Revolution eventually engages the attention of all historians of the Revolution, lay and clerical, liberal and Marxist. Among the longest-running and most interesting debates in this historiography is the one which pitted Alphonse Aulard against Albert Mathiez at the time of the separation of Church and state in 1905. This was, of course, the first round in a heated and often personal intellectual struggle between the two historians; but its pretext remains a subject for research by students who are younger and less heated. What is the reason for the invented liturgies of the Great Revolution? Why these bizarre and often ridiculous cults of Reason, of the Supreme Being, of Theophilanthropy? Was Aulard right when he proposed in 1892 that the first two cults were fabricated to respond to the patriotic passions of a people at war?' Or do we prefer Mathiez, who concluded in 1904 that they were only elementary forms of the religious life which Frenchmen adopted out of nostalgia for the old?2 Recently John McManners has suggested we adopt both opinions as complementary.3 Are they? And is there perhaps another explanation to which the ideas of Aulard and Mathiez are simply first approximations?

2 citations